Lovely
by eloquentlyinsane
Summary: The tale of Rosalie saved Emmett, how Emmett joined the Cullens, and how they fell in love. One-shot. RxEm. REVISED.
1. Isn't he lovely?

**Disclaimer**: **_All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended or accepted._**

The tale of Rosalie saved Emmett. How Emmett joined the Cullens. And how they fell in love. One-shot. RxEm. REVISED.

* * *

I was dying.

But for some reason I wasn't panicking.

Well, I was squealing like a stuck pig because it hurt a hell of lot than it should have been hurting for someone teetering on the brink of heart failure. Calling it a "chest wound" wouldn't do my death justice. Fact of the matter was I was basically trying to keep my organs from spilling out of the huge gash in my torso.

At this point it was a matter of minutes.

I wasn't frightened at all. Well, I _was_, but not of dying. What came afterwards was more disconcerting. I didn't like the idea of eternal fire and brimstone. Of course, I knew it was inevitable; I had a tad more fun than I should have had in life. And the giving of my soul to the devil, being unavoidable as the matter was, was what frightened me the most.

Well, that and the fact that I would never make it home to my mother's for Christmas pie and turkey. Who else was going to polish off the leftovers there was no room in the kitchen for? She was going to be _devastated_.

The pain was growing exponentially now. Like the stupid grizzly couldn't have just swiped my head and been done with it. It had to maul me to make_ National Geographic_ fulfilled its yearly quota of bear attacks.

I turned my head slowly and watched my blood mix with the water of the stream a few feet away, turning the current crimson. It was no almost-naked model, but the sight normally would have made me whip out my camera and snap a few dozen pictures.

It was silent now, except for the occasional drip of blood into the water.

I wouldn't scream anymore, the pain was final, and I was too far gone for any number of transfusions or anodynes. I was too far gone to be saved. Too far gone to live. And things were already turning dark and gloomy.

For some reason, I got the feeling that someone was approaching me. This, although it wouldn't help my condition gave me some comfort. Dying with a stranger was better than dying alone.

A few seconds later, a pair of bare feet danced into sight - I say danced for lack of a word more apropos. From what I could see of her legs, they were gorgeous. I wanted to whistle but couldn't work up the breath. Instead, the breath caused a sharp agony in my lungs. I wheezed painfully, unable to yell or shriek. The woman knelt down next to me, gasping. From this position, without her face a foot away I could see that…she was…pretty.

_Pretty_, _my ass_.

She was amazing…beautiful…I couldn't think of words to properly describe her.

_Was I already dead? Was she an angel?_

That made sense, she was almost glowing in the sunlight. Or maybe she was a demon, sent to torture me. But it was hard to believe someone so incomparably gorgeous could have been a demon.

She had to be an angel.

_My_ angel. I _was_ dying after all.

She took my head in her hands. "You're going to be all right. I promise!" She was comforting me.

_Are you real?_

I wanted to kiss her out of gratitude, and out of a few other things, too. But before I could say anything, I realized we were moving - the trees were flying by.

I wouldn't have believed if I hadn't see it with my own eyes. She was carrying me and sprinting.

Me, Emmett McCarty, who on an odd day weighs closer to two-hundred pounds than most wrestlers. This smoking and petite blonde, who couldn't have weighed more than a hundred-twenty had just grabbed me like I was Raggedy-Ann and was sprinting at a speed I couldn't really even comprehend.

I couldn't even wrap my head around it; so I settled into her arms and just trained my eyes on her face. Her face was contorted; beautiful, but pained and agonized. Her lips and hands were trembling and her eyes were almost flaming.

The pain, meanwhile, had grown a hundred-fold and I was writhing uncontrollably, wrenching my lips closed so I could act like a man. My vision was almost gone and I was supremely angry than this last miracle was being taken from me.

Finally, she came to a stop and laid me tenderly on the ground.

"Carlisle, please!" Another man joined her. "Save him. Please. Don't let him die." I looked up into the tawny eyes of a man who could have been her brother. I frowned to myself. Knowing my luck, this was probably her boyfriend. And he was a looker; I had no business competing with him. "_Please_, Carlisle."

Then I couldn't see. Everything was gone. Black, death was minutes away.

"You could have done it yourself, you know," He said quietly. He was stripping away my shirt.

"I would have killed him myself." She bent to my ear and said. "This is going to hurt. _A lot_. But in the end, at least you'll live."

She seemed to be was pleading with me...Now I was completely lost.

From the other side, I felt the other man lower his mouth to my neck - I could feel him breathing on- and he _bit me! The guy bit my neck._ What was he? Some kind of vampire?

I opened my mouth to protest.

But instead, a jolt shot across my body. I was no longer speechless or blind. In a moment I was screaming louder than ever. I felt as if someone had poured salt into wounds that had suddenly erupted across my body. It was a pain so sharp, so intense that I lost all control of my body. My back arched, and the scorching, white-hot sensation spread further.

I scarcely noticed when the man bit my other wrist.

Every moment that advanced induced flame all over me. My eyes began to tear. I felt like a hot hand of iron was taking tight hold of my neck and squeezing hard. Like lava was being poured onto my chest. I began to claw at my own skin, anything to _make it stop!_

Meanwhile, blondie had started to weep. She took my hand and whispered, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry." She kissed my forehead and amid the throes of my agony, the cool touch of her skin soothed me.

The night passed in a similar way but when morning came, I began to vomit, spilling the contents of my stomach. Blood. Bits of skin from my stomach. Acid that scorched my throat.

"Water…" I said hoarsely.

Blondie quickly placed a glass at my lips and helped me pour the cold liquid down my throat. It felt nice. I gulped back as many mouthfuls as I could before giving the glass back.

"Rosalie, no!" Shouted the other man. But he was too late. "No! It's going to come back up now!" He hissed.

I closed my eyes and let my head go limp in her hands. We weren't in the forest any more. I suppose during my fits, they had moved me to some sort of hospital.

Then, almost immediately, I pulled myself from her arms and threw up again. Water and stomach acid.

It was awful.

_Was this real?_ Or was this a hell I'd been sent to for atonement?

"It's working…" The man said almost sadly. "The venom. Your body is trying to reject all the things it doesn't need anymore…" He whispered. Blondie — Rosalie — got a rag and drenched it with cold water before wiping my face clean. I was covered in sweat, blood, and vomit.

The excruciating agony that coursed through my bloodstream only got worse as the hours went by. I was so consumed by the inferno that many a time I tried to push my self out of her arms. But she continually drew me back for what little pacification she could offer.

And then…a spasm hit me then.

I threw back my head and screamed so hard I thought my vocal cords would snap. She covered my body with her own and pressed my face to her neck. I jerked about, unable to control myself over the paroxysms; and she all but crushed me in her arms. Terror and excruciating pain caused an endless stream of tears to roll down my cheeks. I was sobbing so hard that my body shook. There was no release.

_Pop_.

Silence.

I could feel wetness by the sides of my face and I realized my eardrums had burst. My throat was closing up from the tension in my muscles, making it impossible for me to swallow; I began to choke. She gently opened my mouth and held me at a tilt so I could spit all of the accumulated blood and saliva.

Then the seizure passed, I threw my sweat soaked face against her chest, exhausted, yet begging for the cool, icy touch of her skin. Rosalie steadied my face with her hands and pressed her forehead against mine, kissing my forehead intermittently. I couldn't help it. I pressed my face into her chest and cried.

My eyes burned now to the point where I couldn't open them. My stomach released acid again, all over the floor. I clutched at my chest, scratching at my throat, drawing blood.. But then the tips of my fingers burned. Needles pricked my arms. Then I couldn't breathe. I imagined that the airways of my throat and nose seal up completely. I writhed on the floor, scracthing so hard, I was sure I was going to tear my throat right open.

She seized my hands and held them securely in her. Somehow, despite the fact that I was so much bigger than her, she enveloped me in her arms, spooning me against her body so that I wouldn't hurt myself.

That was the first time in my life I ever wished for death.

I begged her to just kill me now. She obviously could interpret my stare. Instead of lopping off my head like I'd hoped, she lifted my chin and said, "I'm sorry, it had to be this way, but I couldn't let you die. You're pulling through this. We've come this far. Listen to me: I need you! You can't die on me." My eyes filled with tears and they slowly spilled down my cheeks.

• • •

I didn't dare open my eyes.

I was exactly sure what happened, but I knew crazy blond doctor had something to do with it and I didn't want him injecting me anything else.

I heard footsteps approaching and remained motionless and pretending to still be unconscious.

"He should wake any moment now." That was blond doctor. "Rosalie...you have to be patient, he may not understand this, or even want to."

"I know, Carlisle." That was Rosalie. "I just hope he'll understand why I chose him. I couldn't even tell you myself. I just..._knew_."

The way she spoke about me was so tender, so affectionate, as if we had known each for years instead of three unbelievably agonizing days.

"Isn't he lovely?"

"He's certainly something," Blond doctor - Carlisle - admitted.

"Look at those dimples, they're precious. Look at him, less than a minute old." I felt her hand touch my arm and it was with great difficulty that I remained still.

"I never I'd be this in love. Or find someone _like him_. I've never been so _happy_." Her voice broke.

"Rosalie..."

"_I know_,_ I know_. I will be realistic and downtrodden, Carlisle. Don't worry."

I let my eyes drift open.

I could tell it was evening. The light from the window showed the setting sun, dousing everything in gold and pink hues, setting everything in sight alight with drops of sunshine. For some reason, it had never seemed so intensely beautiful.

"Hello," she said to me.

For once in my life, I didn't have a thing to say.

If I had thought she was beautiful before...she was radiant, consummate, absolute perfection. And...she was in love with me. _How long have I been out?_

"I'm alive," I said, testing out my voice. She nodded. "…how am I alive?"

"You're…a vampire." She said flatly.

"I'm…what?"

"I'm a vampire. Carlisle is a vampire. We're all vampires. He bit you. So you're a vampire."

"What's the pain for?" I asked, almost indignantly.

She smiled. "It's the transformation. Changing from a human to a vampire is painful conversion. I'm sorry...I couldn't let you die."

I nodded. We'd come back to that later. I was bubbling with questions. "Wait, did you say 'we'? There are more of you?"

She nodded. "Would you like to go downstairs and meet them? They're all waiting to see you."

She took my hand again and instead of being cold to touch, it was rather warm and delicate where it had felt icy.

The first thing I saw was a Christmas tree covered in lights, figurines, and popcorn: expertly decorated. It gave the entire place a warm and almost homey feeling. There were three people — _vampires_ — waiting. They looked up at us when we came down.

The man who had changed me, Carlisle was holding hands with another woman. She had light brown hair and a sweet heart-shaped face. She looked like my mother except she couldn't have been more than twenty-five and was quite pretty. Another man, a boy really, was lounging comfortably on the couch.

His solemn face broke out in a grin once he saw me. "Now you can stop bothering me to like Rose. She's got herself a man, hasn't she?" He snickered quietly.

"How are you doing?" Carlisle asked as we came level.

"A hell of a lot better, thanks."

"This is Esme, my wife." She nodded amiably. And Edward, our son. And of course you know Rosalie." She squeezed my hand.

"I'm Emmett McCarty," I said as I realized they were waiting for me to introduce myself.

Carlisle waved a hand at the unoccupied couch. "Please take a seat. This might take a while to explain."

I sat.

"Rosalie may have told you…we're vampires. Now there are a few things I have to explain." And explain he did. He seemed to talk for hours and never tire. The entire time, Rosalie was watching me with an odd look on her face as if she was waiting for me run away screaming.

When he finally shut up, Esme came forward and said, "I know that's a lot to take in. Rosalie, why don't you two talk? We were going to go hunt. We never did finish...our last one."

"Hunt?" I asked.

"We didn't finish our last trip because, well, because Rose found you. Most vampires drink human blood. It's the easiest things to do being as there are plenty of people almost everywhere. But my family and I don't agree with that so have all adapted to drinking animal blood. We're, you could say, _vegetarians_."

"Oh. Ha, ha," I said feebly when it was clear he was expecting a laugh for his joke.

"The other thing is that if you have a prominent trait when you were human, it carries through and it amplified. Edward, for example, can read minds."

_Read minds?_

The vampire named Edward grinned and answered verbally, "Yep."

"I think yours, Emmett, would be strength. You had an extraordinary amount of muscle for a human."

I met Edward's grin. "Care to wrestle?"

He was up in a flash. We locked hands.

"Dammit!" He muttered, slipping. I grinned. Quickly, I kicked his feet out from beneath him and caught him in a tight embrace. I squeezed my arms close together, trying to cut off his air.

"We don't need to breathe, Emmett. Choking me isn't going to do very much," He sneered from between my hands. I growled but kept squeezing. Suddenly, he scampered quickly out from between my arms and clambered on to my back, his teeth bared to my throat. I picked him up and threw him across the room.

"Emmett, no!" Esme called. Too late for the vase, I thought, cringing. To my surprise, Edward threw his limbs out, like a parachute and stopped his flight by landing on the floor like a cat, a good foot away from the vase and table.

I sighed in relief. "Good one," I said, shaking his hand. He grinned.

"We'll finish it later." He assured me.

"Well, why don't you fill him in, Rose." Carlisle suggested.

I blinked and they were gone. I could hear their voices fading as they ran toward the edge of the forest. In fact, I could hear clearly all the way to the freeway a quarter of a mile down the road. I could hear the rushing stream in the forest and hear a deer cantering along by it.

"Is this real?" I asked.

"Unfortunately, yes." Rose said.

"How long have you..."

"A few years now. Carlisle changed me, saved me, really. Like I saved you." She smiled. "But we've only been _here_ for two years."

"Why do you move?"

"Well, other than the detrimental effects on the environment, we don't age. So, you can understand how odd it would be for a human to come back to him hometown twenty years later and find, say, Edward still seventeen rather than middle-aged."

"You — we — don't age? So when do we die? How do we die?"

"Vampires don't usually die. The process is difficult and involves ripping the vampire into pieces and burning the portions." She smiled grimly. It's quite difficult because vampires so strong."

"That's how you picked me up before!" I exclaimed. "I knew you weren't a cow."

She laughed. "Besides that, we're stronger, faster, better-looking -" She gestured to the mirror across the room, but I simply stared at her. I'd take her word for it. She was hot. "And an acute sense of taste and smell."

"But...?"

"Resisting the blood lust is quiet hard." She admitted. "It takes almost a year usually to practice control. Carlisle is the best of all of us, he's been clean since he was made - three hundred years."

"That geezer is three hundred years old?" I snickered.

"He's a doctor."

_Wow._ My laughter faded. A_ doctor._ I admired his perseverance.

She nodded and took my hand, and led me upstairs. "There's a guest bedroom on the end of the hall across my room and next to Carlisle and Esme's room. Edward's room is this one. I glanced inside; Spartan and barely decorated though geared toward music.

"The piano downstairs…does he play that?"

"Yes. I'll ask him to play for you, he's quite good." Then she led me into her room and we sat down. And she waited for me to spill the questions threatening to tumble out of my mouth.

"Real or not real?" I asked her. "What Carlisle said before..."

"Real. Every word."

"How old are you?"

"Eighteen," She answered promptly.

"And how long have you been eighteen?"

"A while," she admitted at last, smiling. "I'm not really sure."

"Real or not real? Don't laugh — but how can we come out during the daytime?"

She laughed, hard. I was captivated by her; she was so beautiful. Her loveliness was inhuman. _Oh, well. Duh._

"Not real."

"Real or not real? Do we sleep in coffins?"

I felt stupid when I realized we were sitting on her bed. But she answered anyway. "Not real." She hesistated. "We can't sleep."

"At all?"

"Never," She said, nearly inaudible, turning to look at me with a wistful expression.

"Burned by the sun?"

"Not real."

She paused again and then noting a shaft of sunlight in the doorway of the room, walking to it and immersed herself. I would say, I lost my breath, but I didn't really have breath to lose.

Rosalie in the sunlight was shocking. Not just beautiful, not pretty. Resplendent, immaculate. Lovely. I couldn't _get _used to it, though I'd been staring at her unabashedly all day. Her skin sparkled, like thousands of tiny diamonds. Her face seemed to go up in scintillating flames that shimmered and shone on the ceiling like a mirage.

Maybe she _was_ a mirage; after all, I'd always doubted the existence of angels. She closed her eyes, though of course she didn't sleep. A perfect statue, carved in some unknown stone, smooth like marble, glittering like crystal. But too soon the sun disappeared and she returned to her perfect par.

"That's why we can't come out in the sun," She said in the silence.

In two strides I'd crossed the floor.

"Real or not real? You love me."

She smiled sweetly and tells me, "Real."

* * *

**REIVEW.**


	2. AN

**Disclaimer**: **_All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended or accepted._**

* * *

Hey readers,

So I hope that you guys enjoyed _Lovely._

Sure, so maybe we know Rose and Em's story, but we never saw it. I didn't put the part with Royce because we pretty much know EXACTLY what goes down there thanks to Eclipse (cue "_Rosalie paused in the doorway, her breathtaking face unsure_" SORRY, BUT THAT LINE CRACKS ME UP EVERYTIME).

Plus, I just wanted this to be really happy and Emmett is always funny, even when he's dying :( . (Maybe this is why he's so ripped: he's compensating for feeling emasculated when Rose saved him, haha.)

And did anyone catch the bit of _Hunger Games _I added in? Also, did anyone catch how I used lyrics from Stevie Wonder's _Isn't She Lovely_ to descrie newborn Emmett. Haha, good stuff.

- eloquentlyinsane

* * *

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